


There´s no heroes in a world like ours

by Piamio



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Cages, Captivity, Caught, Creepy Whumper, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Little Nightmares comic spoilers, Mono is a dumbass, Whump, mention of animal skinning, trauma response
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piamio/pseuds/Piamio
Summary: Six looks up at the sound of a broken sob and spots a kid with a paper bag on his head crying in the middle of the woods before she´s captured by the Hunter.
Relationships: Mono & Six (Little Nightmares), Six & The Hunter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 185





	There´s no heroes in a world like ours

Six wondered if she had no tears left to shed. Had they dried? Or was she just too busy trying to survive one more night to care? 

It was a waste of time. 

If she wanted to live, she had to pull through and get out of the Hunter´s forest. With the sound of the shotgun reloading behind her, she hopped into the messy maze of the roots of a tree and crawled her way back to the surface. 

Taking wide gasps for air, Six took a few steps away from the hole she had popped out from, tentative, her eyes only closing to catch her breath when she saw nothing followed after her. 

She sighed relieved.

For now, she had lost him. 

It wouldn´t take him long to find her. They always did. The Hunter´s traps were everywhere too, she couldn´t just sing victory so carelessly. That's not what had kept her alive all this time. 

She was deciding her next move, when a wretched sob forced her eyes up. 

Perched up on the branch of a tree, the silhouette of a kid with a paper bag in his head cried with knees bent close to his chest. Arms tightly wrapped around thin legs as he turned his head with a sniff. 

Her eyes widdened like the moon behind him. 

A boy, a lonely kid just like her, crying his eyes out in a world that didn´t wait for them to reel back the tears to attack. In a world were it was the norm to take advantage of that moment of vulnerability to turn the odds against them without a second thought... he was crying?

“Why?” she whispered to herself as a soft wind blew her dirty dress, grazing her scraped knees with a mild sting. The boy kept her eyes on her, keeping himself as still as the little tremors of his crying would let him. She could tell, as she didn´t stray them away either. 

Utterly stunned by what she saw, she took too long to realize the Hunter´s steps drawing near. And by the time she noticed, the adult already had the metal cage above her. 

\--

The music´s box gentle melody was what lured her out of the cage. 

However, at first, she recoiled further into the metal that had kept her safe from his hands for days. Even when the man dropped food in front of her, she didn´t dare crawl anywhere near. Not when the man was present, at least. 

When the Hunter brought her to his home, Six had seen the man´s family sitting on a table, ready for dinner. However, if she hadn´t smelled them from meters before he barged through the main door, she would have noticed by the flies surrounding them that they were no longer in this world. 

The food on their plates, rotting away and the maggots surrounding them didn´t do anything but spike Six´s heart rate. It was meat, he was _the Hunter,_ of course it would be. But the traps she had stumbled upon on her way out of the woods didn´t always contain simple unlucky animals. 

Six shuddered, tension leaving her body and settling all over again when the Hunter picked her cage up and carried her downstairs to the basement with a soft humming. 

She didn´t know why, but the man didn´t seem to see her as prey or food, as many of the other adults saw her. Not even as a pest to get rid of. If she had to guess what the Hunter´s intentions were with his attempts to pet her head when, eventually, she succumbed to the tidbits of meat and almost-too-ripe-to-eat fruits that he bringed for her, was that he wanted to keep her alive. 

The dozens of fur rugs shoved right beneath the sewing machine in the other room gave her a thought for what exactly.

The Hunter huffed, displeased with her reaction to scrunch herself on the walls of her prison to run away from his touch, but not enough to end it. Just like his patience, her conviction wouldn´t falter either. 

If he was keeping her alive, she had time. Enough time to think about finding a way out. 

The basement was small and she was weak, but the window shouldn´t be far to reach. 

Yet, the day she had kept some leftovers of the sausage from the night before, the Hunter opened the door of her cage before sitting right in front of her with his back to the door. 

No way out... Not yet, she corrected herself. 

She stayed still in the furthest corner from him, letting her watch from afar how he took out of his pocket a tiny music box. Her eyebrows knitted together as the man´s took the handle between his gloved fingers. A single one of them was almost as big as her head, if she got caught, he would splat her like a fly in his palm. 

Her attention snapped back to the music box when the melody started. 

A soft tune, almost like a forgotten lullaby hummed by someone kind, while gently swayed in a safe embrace began to play. Nothing alike to what this world had thrown at her.

Her heart, frozen inside her chest in fear, was soothed back into a warmth she didn´t recognize, that she wasn´t sure had ever felt before, as it began to pump warm blood back into her body. 

Of course she had a name for it, it was her goal after all. 

Safety. 

It took her a moment to realize the warmth rolling down her cheeks were tears. 

She gasped back to reality when the Hunter let the music box down on the floor, dropping a few sunflower seeds next to it before he stepped back very slowly, crouching, until his back touched the door. 

Six wiped the tears off. There was no such thing as safety. Not when danger lied in wait for one small mistake to dig his claws in her flesh. 

Both stared at each other for a long, long moment. 

The world had made her a cautious little being. She wouldn´t simply crawl out of her hiding into his hands like that. Not for food and not for a piece of… of whatever that had put tears on her eyes she thought had gone dry.  But it wasn´t until the moonlight touched the key on the man´s worn out, leather wind breaker´s pocket, that she didn´t took a deep breath and stepped out of her cage for the first time. 

One feet first, then the other. Her hands didn´t leave the edge of the cage until she saw the Hunter wave his hand at the music box as an invitation. 

Her heart thundered in her ears, instincts kicking in and screaming at her to not tempt her luck and not fall in what was obviously a trap, when she crawled her way to the music box. 

The Hunter relaxed a second when Six touched the music box, but jolted surprised when she grabbed the seeds and ran under the table. 

The man, quick like a whip, threw the cage aside, letting it clatter against the wall before crouching to see Six pressing her full body against the wooden wall behind her. Heart pounding as her breathing became quick like rapid fire. Her eyes opened like plates and almost screamed her life out of her mouth when the Hunter extended his hand towards her. 

Cowering from it, barely an inch from her reach, the Hunter´s hand stopped, and retreated back into his lap. 

Behind his mask, Six could see his eye. Open wide, leaving but a dot of blue and black around the white, just one of the signs of the disfigured face that lied beneath the cloth. Vestiges of the twisted mind that was corrupted beyond salvation.

It took a huff and a slam on the door that made her jump before she understood the Hunter had locked the door and walked upstairs. She slid on the wall with her breathing growing steadier every minute that the door didn´t open again. 

During the next month, the Hunter only visited her every few days a week. To throw scraps of food neatly tied in napkins and a small bowl of water after hearing Six run to hide. She couldn´t see him, but she knew the man stayed for a while behind the door. Waiting for her to crawl out of her hiding to grab the handle and play her music box. 

In all that time, the Hunter seemed unbothered by his captive´s antics to escape the small room. Oh, and she had tried. But there was nothing useful against the glass window, as it was sealed from the outside. 

Burnt around the edges and too thick to break with her weak arms. 

She had been in that world for long enough to know not to scream. Instead, she picked up the piece of chalk that rolled down the door on the first day and used it to count the days. Scribbling them directly into the wall and expanding over to the ground and then, right beneath the window. 

Besides the chalk doodles surrounding her, during those long hours the Hunter went for his prey, Six played the music box. 

Wondering when would the Hunter finally barge in and take her wherever he took his other catches. 

Her hand stopped moving for a moment when she remembered the kid with the paper bag in his head. _He must have used the moment the Hunter was distracted with her to escape,_ she thought to herself as her hand kept turning the wheel of the handle, her eyes nailed on the ground as the tune continued. Too much inside her head to care about the cracks in the molded wood of the staircase. 

The sound of the Hunter´s heavy steps wasn´t there and so Six shrugged the sound as just her imagination. Maybe a rat. 

If she had been the one perched on the tree and him on the ground, she wouldn´t have doubted to run without looking back.

She would have, if their places were switched. 

Six kept moving the handle letting the tune fill the infinite, blissful silence of the basement.

Heroes and safety didn´t exist in such a world.

Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted, when at the first shining of the ax through the door, Six paddled back into her fur bed below the table. Old rugs the Hunter didn´t miss her using, yet didn´t do anything about it. Her whole body began to shake at the way the door was destroyed, someone cutting their way through to her with an ax. 

She gasped, throwing away the music box before running to recoil away from the person dropping the weapon cold on the floor before running inside, slowing down when they noticed her hiding beneath the table pushed close to the window. 

Her eyes nailed on the tiny person going down in one knee before her. Two orbs packed with absolute fear when the boy with the paper bag slowly held his hand out for her. 

“Hey, are you injured?…” He said softly. “Here, take my hand. Let´s get out”

Six´s brain took a second to understand the words spoken to her. It took her limbs another to crawl out of her hiding when she spotted no weapons close to him, nor the Hunter trailing behind him or waiting to jump on them either.

He had come alone to the Hunter´s shed to… save her?

She blinked at him and took a calculated step forward. Crawling closer to him, she put her hand up as she saw his chest puff, holding his breath as he reached for her hand slowly, their fingers almost touching.

She stood up and shoved him to a side before sprinting down the hall, upstairs. 

_ It was an old one, but it was a school uniform!  _

Adrenaline ran through her veins as she flew her up the stairs, certain the other followed after her. 

_That was the new tactic of the Teacher´s dolls? Crying under a paper bag?_

She couldn´t see his face to be certain, but she wouldn´t wait to figure out how feral he was. 

Six ran to open the dining room´s door, desperately moving the doorknob exactly as she had imagined a thousand times if she ever got upstairs again. She couldn´t care less about the flies around the Hunter´s family.

“W-wait!” The boy said in a hush as she climbed her way through the dishes cabinet to the small ventilation hole close to the ceiling.

_Even if he isn´t a doll, and he actually just another kid like me using a stolen uniform, in that full month, he chose the moment when the Hunter is still around the house to go inside? Is he stupid?!_ She thought to herself as she jumped down into the other room. 

A handle to the atic´s door hung from the ceiling and she ran to it. She didn´t have time to waste. She was close to get outside. She knew. She had heard the Hunter´s steps from below and counted them with the sound of a door slamming shut. He should be busy in his shed.

She jumped, grabbing on to the handle, but her weight being too little to actually make the stairs up drop. With an exasperated wince, she let go of it.

Her eyes snapped back at the boy falling unceremoniously into the ground from the hole of the other room with a pained groan. 

“Please, listen to me!” he said lifting himself up as Six took a step back and put her hands up. Waiting for the moment he would show his true nature. He put his hands up in surrender, keeping a reasonable distance from her when he spoke again “Please...I don´t wanna hurt you”

Six´s body tensed up. 

_ What? _

She stared at the boy for a while longer, the window behind her illuminating his dumb paper bag mask as he shakily put a feet in front of him, stepping into the light.

“I´m sorry. I didn´t mean to scare you, really. I _swear_. I- Are you ok?” the boy said staying still as Six blinked at him, perplexed. “I came to help yeah?” 

_“Help?”_ she spat out, her voice coming out rusty from misuse. 

The boy nodded his head vigorously, as he put his hands down. Visibly relaxing. 

“Yes!” He beamed before shrinking in his shoulders at Six´s shushing. “Sorry” he said, putting a finger over what she supposed his mouth was. 

Six´s frown deepened. Had he grown under a rock to not have learnt to be cautious with his voice? No, you had to be careful below rocks too. Besides, he said he came to help her? Who the hell was this guy?

She brushed over him. The boy was dirty like a slumdog, his naked feet almost caked completely in mud. The sound of his voice was gentle behind the paper bag, two holes for eyes and nothing else to make up the face below.

He looked like a runaway kid, but she couldn´t be so sure yet. 

“ _Name_ ” she demanded, not taking her time with useless formalities. Dolls don´t have names either. He would rat himself out if he didn´t answer.

Taking a few steps closer, the boy mumbled out, now in a careful whisper “My-My name´s Mono. Let me help you get out of here”


End file.
